The Anchoress

Joy Behar can declare that the Bush administration are “liars and murderers,” but don’t call her a “fringe liberal,” because “that’s like name calling.”

This is the same woman who, upon hearing of Sen Tim Johnson’s stroke, wondered if he’d had a “man-made stroke,” and that “someone did this to him.”

Oh, right…she was just joking…

But she certainly seeeeeems like a fringe liberal.

What? I’m just joking!

Sometimes when I’m getting my bloodwork done, the office lobby has The View blaring - every time I’ve watched (both with Star and with Rosie) I’ve thought: why do people watch this? Why does Barbara Walters want her ground-breaking and respectable career to end with this vile product?

Click the the ABC news link at this site for a very nice video news report of the quickly growing Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.

Now that the awful and embarrassing “auditions” part of American Idol is over, I’m watching the competition. Some very talented (and personable) women and a few talented boys (sigh…yes, but they’re boys…where are the manly men?) but Melinda Doolittle knocked me out last week and this week, she sang My Funny Valentine with such art and passion - and with real style - that she actually made me weep. And when she dipped into her lower register, she reminded me a little of my beloved Miss Ella Fitzgerald.

By my email, I see I’m not the only one who was so affected by Doolittle.

I always weep before beauty, it’s one of the most embarrassing things about me, and tonight I idiotically wept at the tv, because Doolittle’s performance was…an absolute beauty. Wow. Just wow.

Reader Owen sent me the link. Enjoy.

Related: Melinda, Jordin, Lakisha Stephanie, American Idol

The Anchoress’ own lovely statue of St. Benedict

…You ought to use the greatest caution, even in doing good things. For it may be that, in carrying out some good works, you are seeking only the favor and good graces of men: or the desire of praise may overtake you, and what is done for outward effect, fail in its inward reward.
- Pope St. Gregory the Great (Homily 12 on the Gospels)

“Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised”
- Tolstoy

I think most of us have generous hearts, and the things we do - the volunteer work we take on, or the advocacy we engage in - we begin with pure intentions and little thought for what personal gain our doings may reap. We take on a cause because we really want to help and then perhaps find ourselves the recipient of some public recognition, gushes, little plaques noting our willingness to share time and talent…perhaps sometimes gifts come our way….(I once helped someone out and was very surprised to receive two tickets to the Philharmonic for my very small, barely thought about, effort) - and because it feels kind of nice to be stroked and feted, we begin to lose sight of why we began a thing in the first place. We continue to do the work, because we still believe in it, but when the strokes stop coming because people begin to take your participation for granted (and that always happens) it is not unusual for someone to step up their committment, make themselves more visible, seem more tireless and passionate, in order to keep the praise and applause coming.

And that is when things risk becoming out-of-balance and distorted. That is when we opened ourselves up to allowing our good works to become less about the work and more about us.

And when that happens…well…then it’s easy to fall into a “do as I say, not as I do,” mentality, which is an out-of-balance mentality.

I’m a priest; my consecration is now so ordinary to me that I don’t think about the scandal if I am using foul language in conversation.

I love Jesus and am so protective of Him that I don’t realize that sometimes I come off like a Proud Pharisee and not a Penitant Publican.

I’m an environmentalist and I’ve done so much to raise awareness that I don’t really have to worry about the mines on my property, or flying my private jets because - thanks to me and my advocacy - a million little people will do their part to make up for that pollution.

I’m a political leader who throws so much money at foundations and charities that it doesn’t matter if I am a Destructor of Others Personal Lives.

I’m a teacher, and I’m committed to educating young minds, but that doesn’t extend to allowing them to think outside my parameters.

I’m a journalist who went into the craft because I wanted tell true stories…but these are complex times with relative truths, and so I can completely bury stories of progress in Iraq while sobbing about a lack of progress in Kosovo because it’s for a greater good, as informed by my worldview.

We all have something about which we are hypocritical at least sometimes. My husband is an uber-volunteer for church and many organizations, but sometimes he’s just a grouchy, distracted pain in the patoot. I’m a Christian woman who has been told on more than one occasion that she writes like “an intelligent, erudite caveman. With club.”

None of us cover ourselves in glory all the time. Some of us, yer Anchoress included, routinely yell at others about the shovels in their yards while hitting ourselves in the face with our rakes. None are perfect, save Christ.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to nurture enough of an interior life - a habit of honest occasional introspection, if not prayer - to at least ask ourselves, “how am I doing, here? Am I still doing this because I believe in it and want to serve it, or because it has begun to serve ME well? Am I balanced about what I am taking and receiving? Am I enjoying the praise a little too much and losing touch with the fact that deep down, I’m still a bit of a dork, and that I know it, even if no one else seems to?

I think we’re all frauds now and again. Perhaps how deeply fraudulent we are may be measured by how willing or unwilling we are to laugh at ourselves, or to admit mistakes and failings.

When I was a little girl we Catholics were taught to spend some time before bed each night in an “examination of conscience,” which may be plainly thought of as a review of our day in light of the Ten Commandments, but of course can go much deeper than that. People talk of “Catholic guilt,” but I think of it as “Catholic consciousness” - of a way for us to remain “in balance,” and to maintain our grasp, however lightly we may, on the fact that we all have moments when we are complete asshats.

That self-awareness may be the thing that can keep us humble, so that we don’t fall so easily into the scandalous sin of hypocrisy, which never helps any cause.

Perhaps the ability to balance our work with some sort of interior life is why The Rule of St. Benedict has been practiced for 1500 years by monastic communities (and lately in business and at home) - because it teaches one to be mindful of balance.

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.
- Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk (Under the Rule of St. Benedict)

UPDATE: Into Great Silence is finally playing in limited release around the country. Even The NY Times gave it a rave. If you can get a chance, maybe try to see it now, during Lent! And see Ambivablog’s fascinating link on this film!

Also, go check out Gerald’s lovely photographs which may spur you on to a bit of meditation!

Sometimes it seems like certain themes just appear within a week, and maybe this is Hypocrisy Week, after all. There’s all this “don’t do as I do, do as I say” stuff going on…

First we have the Al Gore, Secular Saint as Mine-Owning energy gulper, now there’s the Prince of Wales seeking to ban yer Big Macs while profiting from a concoction that is somewhat less “healthy”. (Jules Crittenden has more.)

Then we have the NY Times, which has been discussing the immorality of “Bush’s increasingly unpopular war” and proclaiming that we have no business whipping a Democratic government on Iraq for so long that the paper has almost become a parody of itself. Now it is sighing and asking for “more outside help” because…are you ready? “…without more outside help, there is little hope for building a peaceful democracy in…Kosovo.”

Kosovo? That’s still going on? Is it a Quagmire? Ohhhh that’s right…it can’t be a Quagmire! It’s a Clinton/UN production! Let’s get this show on the road then, and give them more time (8 years is not enough) to get Democracy right, over there!

James Taranto had a little fun with that, yesterday

This is the problem with moralizing…it’s so easy to get hoisted up on one’s own petard. It happens. Churchmen get nailed for it whether they are clerics of a Mono-Theistic church or a Secular Environmental/Organic Food one.

Or, you know, a blogging one.

Scene: Coffee Shop. Breakfast, approximately 7AM

First man: “I dunno, this stock market thing, I question the timing. Yesterday the big story was Al Gore’s energy-usage and suddenly the markets go crazy.”

Second man: “That is weird - do you think someone wanted the Gore story off the front page?”

The whole world is paranoid. The right is as crazy as the left.

And the worst part is, when I heard this fellow’s remarks to his companion, I stared at my breakfast and thought, “wait…could it be? No, of course not! Get a grip!”

And suddenly, I saw an image of George Soros in the grain of my toast…just like one of those visions of Mary baked into a baklava.

From now on, I’m sticking to the baked oatmeal at home. While I’m at it, I’ll re-read Dick Meyer on Political Paranoia.

But clearly, political paranoia is not limited to the right.

Endnote: For the irony or humor challenged…yes, I did hear that exchange. No, I did not see Soros in my toast.

But my eggs…

Look at that post header. We need new names in both our politics and our news broadcasts. The same damn people have held sway over everything for too damn long.

I wasn’t going to revisit Gore’s Carbon Footprint, but the footprint has legs, so here we go.

To start with, Katie Couric - to whom I have really tried to be fair, but who too often is exposing herself as lightweight lacking both depth and curiousity, yesterday posted her worries that the secular canonization of Al Gore might cause a backlash against environmentalism. Now, if you’re a committed environmentalist, that’s not a bad thing to worry about, particularly in light of the fact that - charges of “smearing” and “swiftboating” from the left notwithstanding - Gore and his own people are not disputing the reported figures of his energy consumption..

But Couric was not writing about Gore’s massive carbon footprint (which we are told becomes magically offset by purchasing and planting stuff). She was too busy repeating enviro leftist mantras and questioning none of it, indicating she has never taken the time to really look beyond whatever the DNC/Clinton/Gore/Boxer press releases say. So we read:

“…after a period of time of not conceding global warming even exists, President Bush used the term “climate change” for the first time and has talked about a way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

Well…no, Ms. Couric. The teensiest amount of research would show you that President Bush has been acknowledging “climate change” since at least 2001:

Text of a Letter from the President to Senators Hagel, Helms, Craig, and Roberts 3/13/01 (excerpt)

Thank you for your letter of March 6, 2001, asking for the Administration’s views on global climate change, in particular the Kyoto Protocol and efforts to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act. My Administration takes the issue of global climate change very seriously.

As you know, I oppose the Kyoto Protocol because it exempts 80 percent of the world, including major population centers such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the U.S. economy. The Senate’s vote, 95-0, shows that there is a clear consensus that the Kyoto Protocol is an unfair and ineffective means of addressing global climate change concerns. (H/T commenter cmdicely)

You could read the whole thing, Ms. Couric.

Couric went on to blather the usual talking points:

“And all the experts agree. Well, almost every expert. (There are a handful of scientists — many of them on the payroll of big oil companies — who wonder if global warming is a reality.)”

Aside from the fact that that sounds like it’s written by a 14 year old, it also is simply wrong. There is no consensus on global warming. There are only people who say there is consensus and tell everyone else to shut up, or be threatened with their jobs. Which is actually called fascism, not environmentalism, but that’s another post.

Couric offers no names or evidence that this “handful” of scientists are on these “payrolls,” and she never wonders whether some of the global warming religionists might themselves be on a payroll or two…she just blithely throws out what she knows or think she knows and tra-las away. I’m quite certain she has no idea that President Bush has a very green eco-friendly residence in Crawford, or that he has been successfully working with other countries to create effective eco-policy to replace the Kyoto treaty. The mainstream press and her handlers haven’t told her about it, and no one she knows mentions it, after all.

All in all, Couric gives the impression that she’s heard a few people talking about Global Warming as she’s meandered from luncheon to cocktail party, and this is what everyone she knows is saying - and the people she knows are the smartest people who are always right - so she doesn’t really need to actually check anything out, or read anything that might make her uncomfortable.

I never thought I would say it, but I miss Dan Rather. I may not have agreed with him much of the time toward the end, but he had a curious mind, a willingness to ask questions and he possessed a voice and presence that conveyed…oh…gravitas. Seriousness of purpose. Substance. To me it sounds like Couric dictated that thing while she was having her nails done and a non-fat mocha latte was being delivered to her.

Oh, yeah. Gore. Global Warming. Gee, I hope the rightwingnutjobs don’t start hating him just because Hollywood loves him, because they do that, those rightwingers - look at the poor Dixie Chirps. It’s Chirps, right? Oh, Chicks. Oh, that’s cute!

Enough of that. Now, about those magic carbon-offset indulgences the folks on the left are championing with great fervor. You know they’re hot - they were included in the “presenter’s thank you gifts” at this week’s Oscar telecast:

The [gift offsets] “are enough to balance out an average year in the life of an Academy Award presenter,” a press release from TerraPass asserts. “For example, 100,000 pounds is the total amount of carbon dioxide created by 20,000 miles of driving, 40,000 miles on commercial airlines, 20 hours in a private jet and a large house in Los Angeles. The greenhouse gas reductions will be accomplished through TerraPass’ [program] of verified wind energy, cow power [collecting methane from manure] and efficiency projects.” Voila, guilt-free consumption! It reminds us of the era when rich Catholics paid the church for “dispensations” that would shorten their terms in Purgatory. (H/T Larwyn)

So, TerraPass does what, exactly? Collects money, issues these certificates and then…funds wind farms and such? Is that it? Where, exactly? Not Nantucket, we know, but where? Does anyone know how much money is going into offsets and how much real alternative energy is being produced or how much tree-planting or fluorescent bulb-buying is going on? I haven’t been able to access terrapass.com, so we’ll have to find out when the site comes back up. Who runs that joint, anyway? Shouldn’t we be “following the money” a little - making sure it’s all for real - before we buy all this eco-jazz hook, line and sinker? Shouldn’t someone in the press be looking at this, even just a little? We’re talking about potentially an awful lot of money being gathered (and a lot of legislation being excited) with apparently no one asking a single question.

Meanwhile, IowaVoice (in his third update) is crunching numbers and saying Gore’s green numbers are not really making sense, or his argument is not working. And Mick at Uncorrelated wonders if it is a giant accounting scheme?

As it turns out, Green Power Switch is in fact a limited supply of power, about one 150 kWh per month for 54,000 customers. Al Gore uses 18,400 kWh per month last year–the equivilent of 123 household allocations. Without enough green power switch to go around, a lot of Tennesseans are forced to burn coal to turn the lights on.

While many are looking at Gore’s home energy consumption, I’m wondering if anyone has bothered to think about the carbon footprint of the two working mines on his Carthage, TN property (he has THREE properties, btw, not just the one we keep hearing about), and how they are being “offset” but to me this is smelling more and more like a scheme: Be noble, be green, send your money here and you’ll be alright.

As I’ve said before - I don’t buy into the whole “man is causing global warming and the earth is gonna die unless you do what we say, NOW” narrative. While I think conserving energy is a sensible thing in general (we have our flourescent bulbs and I used to keep a dandy compost heap before I stopped gardening) I don’t really care what Gore consumes. But if you’re going to wag the finger and declare yourself the champion of a “moral not political” issue (albeit one to which green presidents with R’s after their names are not allowed to be recognised) then you’d better be the greenest sumbitch that ever flew a private jet across two continents and then planted a tree, or it will all come back to kick you in the ass.

Speaking of kicking in the ass, remember when Ronald Reagan took heat for accepting a post-presidential speaking engagement that paid about 100K? Bill Clinton’s got him beat in millions of ways. Past presidents have to earn a living, and making money is not a bad thing - it can’t be, so many “highly moral” people have so much of it - but who is this guy receiving his money from? That matters because his wife might be be our president in two years, and we need to know who may be buying his influence to the tune of ten million buckaroos a year. Cal Thomas writes:

Among those for whom Clinton spoke were a Saudi Arabia investment firm ($600,000 for two speeches), a Chinese real estate firm, run by a Communist Party official ($200,000), and a Toronto company, founded by a Kenyan immigrant who was convicted of stock fraud and barred for life from the brokerage business ($650,000 in 2005 and an undisclosed sum last year). The public needs to know more about their backgrounds.

For those who whine, “stop picking on Clinton - other presidents and pols have made money from speeches,” I say, yes, that’s true but, as Thomas writes:

While other ex-presidents have spoken for money, there has been nothing on this scale and none of their spouses served as elected officials.

Scope and scale are the material point. One cannot pretend that there is no distinction between a retired president making a few bucks and one traveling the world internationally, non-stop, while his wife is running the never-ending campaign directed toward the most powerful office in the world.

Martin Peretz, apparently feeling somewhat freed by David Geffen’s recently daring to publicly speak negatively about the Clintons, sticks his toe into the dangerous waters, himself and describes just how much money the Clinton’s absorb:

All about money. Imagine if you are a friend of the Clintons. First of all you are rich, very rich. Simply because they don’t have friends other than ones with spare and bigger than big amounts of cash. Here are the purposes for which you have been asked contributions: twice for Bill Clinton for President (and all of the skeletal extensions of the local and national Democratic Party), the 727s, the White House refurbishing fund, the Clinton Defense Fund, the Clinton Library, twice for Hillary for Senate, annual contributions to the Clinton Global Initiative, each of his and her birthdays. Was there a Chappaqua remodeling project? If you have a private jet you’d have been expected to hand it over for a day, a weekend. If you have a house in Martha’s Vineyard or in East Hampton or in Aspen or in Palm Springs, why don’t you visit your in-laws? And it isn’t as if the Clintons are asking you directly. Some underling is doing it, and you’re afraid to say “no.” Or even “boo.” $1 million here, $1 million there. Pretty soon, it’s a heck of a lot of money.

They ask for money for their birthdays? I used to do that too…but I was twelve.

Peggy Noonan wrote that Geffen’s remarks were going to be a sort of test to find out if any Dems would be allowed to speak negatively about the Clintons and get away with it. It will be interesting to watch the trajectory of Geffen’s and now Peretz’s careers and personal lives over the next few years.

Oh, and poor old Hillary…once again, she’s being dogged by clerical errors within her financial disclosures, or lack thereof. Sigh. This stuff always happens to her! Billing records get lost, cattle futures make weird profit, she gets the only bad translation of Suha Arafat’s speeches…she really needs to hire more competent people.

She’s also having sensitivity issues once again. (H/T Michelle Malkin)

These people all make me tired. I’m tired of looking at them, reading about them, listening to them blab on and on. I’m tired of their tired excuse-making and double-talk. I’m tired of hearing that these people are greatest of people and that only haters could not absolutely adore them, at all times.

I can’t be the only one out there who has had enough of the whole boiling of them. When do they go away? Do they ever retire? Do they ever stop promoting themselves?

I’ll lay you ten to one, when Bush retires, he retires, and we don’t have to look at him or hear him again, unless we want to. Why won’t the rest of them take a break, and give us one, too?

Also writing on Gore:

Don Surber
Vanderleun
James Taranto
Doug Ross
Libertas
The Economist
Ed Driscoll
Instapundit
Classical Values
Hot Air
Learning Strait Up
Don Surber

Writing on Clintons:
AJ Strata
Ed Morrissey
Clinton Pardons coming back to haunt Hillary

On Couric:
Newsbusters

Weather related:
100 years of hysterics: Global Warming or Cooling? (H/T commenter Laura)
JR Dunn: Resisting Global Warming Panic
Michael Crichton’s Prescient Speech of 2003
Will Al Gore Melt?
Inconvenient Truth: Bush greener than Gore
Couric and Company

It is not what thou art, nor what thou hast been, that God looks upon with his merciful eyes, but what thou wouldst be.
- The Cloud of Unknowing.

Keep before your own eyes that which you would wish to be. Don’t be distracted by what other people are, but keep focused as much as possible, on your own soul. We all have regrets. We all wish we’d not done some things in our lives (many things, in my case). We all have things we hate about ourselves.

But we were all born for a purpose and with a potentiality. Think of the person you want to be - keep that person before your eyes - that’s the person God sees, even when you feel submerged in your sins, and irretreivable.

Maybe, even, ask Jesus to stand between you and all you have been, to stand between you and all you would be. Surrounded by Christ, things can only get better. I learned that from a police officer who told me he prayed, whenever he entered a dangerously unstable situation, such as a domestic dispute, that Jesus would stand between him and those to whom he was responding, that Christ would stand between each family member and their worst instincts. It was a powerful witness to me.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
the strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One, and One in Three.
By Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word;
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is fo Christ the Lord.
- St. Patrick’s Breastplate.

Dean Barnett, writing at Hugh Hewitt’s place, offers up some examples of tolerance and compassion from the folks at Huffpo.

Apparently these folks are upset that the Vice-President of the United States was not slain in Afghanistan. I’m not going to bother re-printing the remarks - you know what these adolescents come up with - “better luck next time,” is probably the wittiest of it all.

Michael Goldfarb reminds us that Huffpo is where Nancy Pelosi and other Dem politicos go to blog.

This stuff happens all the time, of course, and there are ugly souls on both the left and the right who use the death of someone like Molly Ivens or Milton Freidman to expose themselves as moral slug residue. Someday people will maybe begin to grow up and realize that you don’t behave like this.

But until that day comes, let us ponder just what these folks would be saying had the assassination attempt against Dick Cheney been successful. My guess is, those who are now sounding disappointed would STILL not be happy. And it would still be Bush’s fault - he’d have hired Skull and Bones people to kill Cheney for “Halliburton shares” or for “Oiiiiiiil,” or to “install Condi as veep” to run in ‘08 or to “keep us scared about terrorism.” Or “for a poll-bounce.”

In the world of over-the-edge-over-the-top politics, your opposition is not a human being, but an evil entity capable of anything…that’s what it has come to, for some, on both sides. And it’s pathetic.

UPDATE: Apparently Huffpo has closed comments on the thread and “disappeared” the comments after first cherry picking through them? Not good. That’s tacky and also reflect badly on bloggers in general.

Related:
Patterico: Greenwald/Thomas/Ellers on deleting comments
Captain’s Quarters: The Assassination Attempt Misses
Protein Wisdom: A Huffpo Tribute
Ed Driscoll: Big Three Could be Big Two by Memorial Day
Right Wing Nuthouse: The Unbearable Invisibility of Common Decency
Ace of Spades
Dick Cheney Vengeance Thread (LANGUAGE AND IMAGERY WARNING - NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART…THEY ARE PIRATES, AFTER ALL…YOU’RE WARNED)

That would be Glenn Reynolds line, here:

THE LONELINESS OF JOE LIEBERMAN. But at least he’s not struggling to come up with a position. I guess that’s the difference between knowing what you believe, and trying to figure out what will sell.

Yes…the first personifies principled leadership and the second mere marketing.

UPDATE: Prof. Reynolds is hitting them out of the park today. I love how he manages to ask a very thoughtful question in a very subtle way here.